Employers need to trust their employees to earn their loyalty and ensure higher productivity. Isn’t that what is being discussed and debated across corporates the world over? But firms in Germany have decided not to trust their employees when they take sick leave or call in sick. In fact, quite a few German employers are engaging private detectives to find out whether their employees are actually unwell or simply using sickness as an excuse to remain absent.
If employees are found to be misusing sick leaves, they are being terminated on the basis of underperformance.
In October of 2024, Tesla had grabbed headlines when the managers of its factory in Germany had adopted the practice of visiting the homes of workers who had called in sick to check the genuineness of their claims.
Germany has a policy that allows employees fully paid leave of six weeks in case of sickness. However, it was observed that the number of workers taking sick leave on Fridays was about five per cent more than on other days. Also, it was noticed that more workers working night shifts tend to take sick leave. Additionally, the Tesla factory had witnessed a 17 per cent increase in absenteeism in August, which was three times the average in the auto sector of Germany. This spike had led Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla to consider investigating the issue. Hence, the visits to the homes of employees by managers!
Looks like Tesla isn’t the only firm suffering from this issue of absenteeism, which seems to be plaguing Germany. In fact, reports say that it is affecting the German economy. On profession seems to be doing well though— the demand for private investigators has certainly gone up, with more and more firms wanting to check the genuineness of their employees’ requests for sick leave.
Data has reportedly revealed that while only 11.1 days of sick leaves were taken by German workers on an average in 2021, this number increased to 15.1 in 2023, taking a toll on the country’s GDP.
